Newsletter
Volume 29 | 2006 | Number 2
Membership Board Update
By Dr. Rachel S. F. Tarbox
Membership Board Coordinator
Our 32nd annual convention was an extremely successful event marked by both an increase in membership and attendance. As the vitality of ABA continues to grow, we on the Membership Board are excited to try to keep up. We have had a productive year, marked by the formation of a new committee and by the addition of several new committee members. The Membership Board is comprised of the Student Committee, Fellows Selection Committee, Recruitment and Retention Committee, Application Review Committee, and the newly established Organizational Review Committee. Updates from each committee are included below, with the exception of the Fellows Committee and the Student Committee, which appear elsewhere in this newsletter.
Both the Fellows and the Student Committees have been very active this year, and we on the Membership Board would like to formally welcome Marianne Jackson as the new Student Committee Chair and Judith Favell as a new Fellows Committee member, and thank them for their continued efforts.
During the past year SungWoo Kahng agreed to serve as the new Chair for the Recruitment and Retention Committee. The mission of this committee is to “design strategies to recruit and retain members.†Some of the goals for the upcoming year include to:
- increase interest/participation and collaboration between basic and applied researchers at the convention,
- increase collaboration between the Recruitment and Retention Committee and the Student Committee in an effort to make ABA (both the organization and convention) more student accessible, and
- consider options for increasing the “value†of membership by providing members more benefits.
Jack Michael continues to serve as the Chair of the Application Review committee to ensure that applicants for full membership qualify. Applications for 2006 just prior to the annual convention were as follows:
Total Applications: |
94 |
|
Full: |
72 |
|
Affiliate: |
22 |
Finally, we are proud to announce the formation of an Organizational Review Committee. The mission of this committee is “to assess the quality of applicants for organizational membership and their appropriateness for acceptance, as well as the adequacy of materials they submit to ABA for printed or electronic publication.†We would like to thank Jay Moore, who has agreed to serve as the Chair of this committee, and David Wilder and Jennifer Austin, who have agreed to serve as committee members. Organizational membership requirements, organizational membership application materials, and an organizational membership advertising policy have been devised to ensure that all applicants comport with the mission of ABA. We look forward to reviewing new applications.
The Membership Board will continue to coordinate activities among the board’s committees in an effort to streamline initiatives. Additionally, we will continue to interact with other boards and committees outside of the Membership Board to determine areas that may benefit from collaboration. We thank all members for your support and we anticipate yet another productive year.